Page 111 of Our Song

‘No, stay here!’he says.‘I mean, unless you want to go back to bed.’

I suddenly imagine hearing those last words in a very different context.‘Um.Cool!I mean, I will.Stay, I mean.It’s closer to the toaster down here, after all,’ I add, because once I start babbling it’s hard to stop.

‘So,’ says Tadhg, ‘are you still up for playing with Sam today?Because if you don’t fancy seeing anyone, we can cancel.He’ll understand.’

‘No,’ I say.‘It’s grand.And after all … well, we’ve only got two days left in the studio.’

I’m about to tell him that I’ve decided to do the festival when Tadhg says, ‘Yeah.About that …’

I brace myself.I’m not sure what I want him to say.

‘How would you feel,’ says Tadhg, ‘about keeping this going for a bit longer?’

‘Keeping what going, exactly?’I say carefully.

‘You and me,’ he says.‘Writing together.Playing together.’

‘You mean do another week later this year?To make up for the time we lost over the last few days?’

‘No,’ he says.‘I mean we could … keep going.Open-ended.’

‘But what about Nashville?Aren’t you going there on, like, Monday?’

‘Fuck Nashville!’he says.‘I can reschedule.’

‘But I’ve got a job lined up!’

‘Fuck the job!’says Tadhg.‘Seriously, Lol, I meant it the other day when I said I couldn’t remember the last time I wrote so many good songs in such a short space of time.We shouldn’t stop now!’

‘So you mean you want to work on songs for your next album?’I say.

‘No,’ he says.‘I mean we should write songs forournext album.’

I stare at him.‘What?’

‘We should start a new band, Lol,’ says Tadhg.‘That’s what I mean.’

And there it is.He wants to keep making music with me.He doesn’t want this to end.He doesn’t want the bubble to burst.

Yes, says my heart.Yes, yes, yes.Yes to all of it!

And I almost say pretty much that, when something stops me.A part of me, a self-protective, sensible part of me, is aware that it’s really,reallynot as simple as that.

What would it mean, in reality, to keep working with Tadhg?I’ve just about been able to handle this songwriting situation when I thought that it was finite.This has stopped me, to some extent, overindulging in wild, stupid fantasies.This was just two intensive weeks with Tadhg, then he’d go to America and I’d start a new job and life would go back to normal.Even the festival would just be a band practice a week and then a one-off show.But what if there were no back to normal?What if I could have the life I used to dream of?What if I could be a full-time musician?What if me and Tadhg could really be bandmates again?How would I deal with that?

Because I’m in love with him.It’s not just a chemical response to his undeniable hotness or whatever I told myself at the start of this fortnight.I’m in love with him, even more in love with him than I ever was when we were both young and stupid.His life has been so different to mine over the last sixteen years, and sometimes it shows, but it still feels sorightbeing with him.I want to see him every day, for always, forever, but not if it’s just as friends.I did that before, when I was much younger and much more willing to suffer.Never again.

He’s looking at me now, all scruffy and happy, and my heart aches.I can barely manage my feelings for him now, when heand I are only seeing each other in this songwriting bubble.But what about when he’s out touring again?What about the next time he’s invited to some swanky celebrity party?What if he starts seeing someone?It was agony sitting there watching him and Jess when I was twenty-one, pretending I didn’t care, going off to the loo to cry when it all got too much.I’m never,evergoing to put myself through anything like that again.

If I accept his offer, could I handle working with him every single day, going on tour with him, helping him write songs about other women?Could I handle being financially dependent on him, at least for a while?I don’t think so.And what’s more important, do Iwantto handle it?When I was twenty-one, I’d have said yes to this offer straight away.I’d have given up any job to play music with him full-time.I wouldn’t have had to think about it, even though it could have caused me huge pain in the long run.It doesn’t matter how old you are, feelings of misery and jealousy are the same.But what changes with age is what you choose to do with them.I’m thirty-seven now.I’m too old to be an emotional masochist.Back in 2003 I stayed in the band even though my heart was breaking.But that was then.And this is now.

And besides, it’s not just about my feelings for him.It’s about my whole life.It’s about changing everything I thought I knew about my future.My advertising career could be seriously taking off.My interesting, challenging career that I care about.Could I really just abandon it?And for a man who broke my heart over a decade ago, and might well break it again without even realising it?

I know I want to keep playing music.And I know I want to keep playing it with Tadhg.But it’s anything but straightforward.I thought I’d rediscovered the old Laura over the last few weeks, but now I see I haven’t.I’ve discovered a new Laura.A new Laura who wants music in her life, who needs music in her life, but not at any price.

I need to weigh it all up.I need to figure out what I will put up with and what I won’t.

I have a lot to think about, and none of it will be easy.

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